


all those pretty lights

by sxldato



Category: Death Note
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Humor, Catholic Character, Folklore, Hanukkah, Jewish Character, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Other, Pyrophobia, References to Drugs, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, S'vivon | Dreidel, Spooning, don't let mello play dreidel it gets too intense, it's pretty brief and lighthearted though, mello stop making bad choices, mostly a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxldato/pseuds/sxldato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re a Hanukkah miracle, buddy.”</p><p>They scoffed, a hard exhale pushed through their front teeth, and it was familiar-- the same way coming home after a long time was familiar. Things changed, furniture moved around, but the foundations stayed the same.</p><p>(In which Mello comes home for the holidays by accident.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	all those pretty lights

**Author's Note:**

> having the name judah and reading about judah maccabee is not a pleasant experience, that is all i will say about that right now  
> i'm pretty sure only like two other people care about jewish matt but that doesn't matter i'm here let's party  
> this is painfully late for the holiday season lmao sorry i was busy being a mess  
> i haven't written about these kids in a long time and i forgot how stress-free it is. like. i wrote part of it last week and then today i slammed through the rest of it and finished it??? how did i even  
> that is all  
> i beta-read it, the real question is if i beta-read it _well_ and tbh i don't wanna answer that  
>  the title is the name of a song by Andrew Belle

He didn’t get the phone call until mid-December, when the air had finally turned crisp and bit into his skin whenever he stepped outside.

9:37, and the city sky was dark and starless, and two blue candles were flickering in his window, and his phone buzzed with a blocked number.

He told himself _no_ even as he answered, listened to the rush of words from the other end of the line, scrubbed the tears from his freckled cheeks. He told himself he wouldn’t do it as he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, taking the stairs two at a time.

9:38, and he pulled out onto the main road with a screech from his tires, and he put the accelerator to the floor straight from the get-go.

He hadn’t blown the candles out before he left; the entire building could burn down and he wouldn’t care. All he had, all that had ever mattered, was a mere thirty miles away. Six years of distance had suddenly slammed into the home stretch, nothing but minutes, moments, fractions of pieces of time left before everything was going to make sense again.

He said nothing about their wounds or how frail they looked, didn’t ask where they’d been or whom they’d been with. That didn’t feel important, not right now.

“You’re a Hanukkah miracle, buddy.”

They scoffed, a hard exhale pushed through their front teeth, and it was familiar-- the same way coming home after a long time was familiar. Things changed, furniture moved around, but the foundations stayed the same.

“C’mon, I’ll let you take shotgun.”

They were quiet on the drive back, staring blankly out the passenger window as the city flew past in blurs of crowds and twinkling lights.

-

“You know I’m not mad at you, right?”

They looked over at him from their spot on the faded sofa. “What?”

They hadn’t said much since last night, only gave a silent look of gratitude before crashing on that same sofa, and then the next thirteen hours had been their restless but much-needed sleep. They still seemed shaken, ridden with guilt, and he didn’t like seeing that in someone so lionhearted.

“I’m not mad—well, no, I _am_ pretty pissed, actually,” he backtracked, and moved to sit on the other end of the couch. “But I also get why you ran, and I don’t… blame you, or anything.”

The corners of their lips turned down, and they looked frustrated. “Why not?”

“Why not? What, you _want_ me to be angry?”

“I think you should break my ribs and then we can call it even.”

He should have seen that one coming. “I don’t want to hit you, man. Why do you always think people wanna hit you?”

The question hung in the air for a while before he gave up on getting an answer. “I let myself have two bad habits in life. The first is smoking, and the second is anything I do that involves you—neither of which I regret, for the record.”

They seemed doubtful, cautious to make themself vulnerable and believe him.

“I don’t have the room for holding grudges, is what I’m saying.” Death by nicotine or by a beautiful volatile disaster, he was content with either. They were both his drugs of choice.

“You should hate me.” Desperation embroidered along the edges of their words like black lace.

“I don’t, sorry. I can’t. And I won’t ever.”

“You’re in way too fucking deep, you know that?” They lashed out, even though it was clear they weren't angry. Anger was simply easier to handle. “You gotta pull yourself out of my mess before you get hurt.”

“Then why’d you call me?”

“Because I’m a shit person and you’re all I’ve got.” The bluntness of their words was a little hard to take.

“Man, talk about putting pressure on a guy.”

“Matt.” Their eyes didn’t have color, more similar to reflecting fractured glass than anything else. “You kick me out when I’m back on my feet, or you’ll get pulled into the deep end with me.”

Matt grinned, and it was lopsided and goofy, because he’d known he was fucked from the time he was eight years old and he met the new kid, the blond beanpole who’d moved in down the hall. He’d made his peace with that a long time ago.

“Nah, I’m not gonna do that.”

“God, you’re such an _asshole_.”

They tasted like ashes and cocaine when they kissed him.

-

Matt had known there was poison in them from the start, because even when they were both kids there was something sinister lurking under the surface. Maybe they _were_ the monster out of fairy tales, the wolf who darted through shadows, burning down little pigs’ houses and snatching girls in red hoods. Their cards had been dealt and they had made their choices, and no amount of Apostles’ Creeds or Our Fathers would change that. The stretch of scarring over their skin was evidence enough; they were unclean. They were supposed to be the bad guy.

And he knew they knew that, too. What he didn’t understand was why they tried so hard to disprove the inevitable, or why they thought he cared. In a city like this, everyone was wicked. Everyone was a sinner.

Not believing in Hell, he conceded as he heated up oil in a frying pan, probably helped in keeping him unworried. Catholics didn’t exactly have that advantage, and certainly not Catholics like Mello.

“If you don’t wanna go to Hell, then don’t,” he’d told them once-- a long time ago when they rode their bikes around the block, a day when the sky was clear and blue, and the scrapes on Mello’s knees were only from playing soccer.

“That’s not how it works. God decides where you go.”

“You should be allowed to make your own choice.”

Mello had rolled their eyes. They’d been like the sky, clear and blue. They’re not like that anymore. “Then nobody would go to Hell, and there would be no point.”

“What if Hell _isn’t_ real, and God’s just screwing with you?”

Mello snorted. “That’s stupid, Hell totally exists.”

He understood now-- at least better than he had when he was thirteen and without a clue how deep his best friend’s anger went, or how many devils hid inside them and told them that they were nothing. Mello needed Hell because they needed punishment; that was the only thing that was getting them through this shit-show, knowing they would pay their dues on the other side.

(And he liked to think that he was a little part of it, too.)

“ _Jesus fuck!_ ”

Oil burn. Great. A little ironic, and he would laugh about it if he weren’t occupied with the scalding patch of skin on his hand.

Mello, for all their stoicism and attempts at keeping themself distant, was on their feet, turning off the stove, and dragging him over to the sink to turn on the faucet before he had a chance to let another string of curses fly. They’d been paying closer attention than he’d given them credit for.

“One burn victim in this apartment wasn’t enough for you?”

Matt spared them a glance, and there was a smile ghosting over the corners of their mouth. The damage done to their face wasn’t any easier to look at, though; not because it was gruesome, but because it was a reminder that there was no going back to what they used to be.

He grinned anyways since there was nothing else to do, and seeing Mello smile always made him want to, no matter how small or brief it was.

“What were you doing?”

“I was gonna make latkes.”

“… You can’t even make mac and cheese from the box, Matt.”

“Hey, not fair. I didn’t know you had to drain the water before you put the other stuff in, okay? The instructions never tell you to do that.”

“Yes, they—you know what, it doesn’t matter.”

They both stood there for a few minutes, watching Matt’s hand under the running water. The slow pulse of pain wasn’t letting up as much as Matt had expected. He wondered, briefly, if Mello’s burns had hurt. Third-degree burns could go numb if they were serious enough. That could be what happened to them, he thought: badly burned, and they didn’t know how to get rid of the numb feeling.

“You might need a doctor,” Mello said.

“Do I really?” It wasn’t a big burn, maybe the size of his pinky finger.

“I mean, I think the hair on your hand was singed, so…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” They turned off the faucet and guided him to the door with his good hand. “Come on, there’s an Urgent Care like ten minutes from here.”

Matt bought latkes at the deli down the street after that.

-

He pretended not to notice the tension in Mello’s body whenever he struck a match to light the _shamash_ candle, because if Mello didn’t bring it up, they didn’t want Matt to know. So Matt acted like he didn’t.

He had a knack for reading people even if he didn’t socialize with them. He could put two and two together; it wasn’t hard to figure out that flames, no matter how small, dug up a metric shit-ton of trauma in Mello’s head.

It wasn’t like he _wanted_ to scare Mello. More than anything, he wanted them to feel safe with him, feel like they could call his crappy two-room apartment their home, too. But he wasn’t supposed to know that they were hurting, and he wasn’t about to tear down their last shred of pride, one that was already a wobbling house of matchsticks.

On the third night Matt had four blue candles in the window, murmuring the prayers under his breath as he lit the wicks and caught his fingers on some of the warm wax. Mello watched from a distance, one part curiosity and two parts anxiety, and Matt decided that he was done playing games.

“Wouldn’t hurt you to come closer, if you want to,” he said, fully aware that he’d just taken a flying jump over a line that should’ve been crossed much more delicately.

Mello’s eyes flashed white-hot and furious, but then there was heat blooming under their cheekbones and they didn’t respond. Matt had hit his mark; that much was clear.

“It’s a thing with you, isn’t it?” Matt turned away from the hanukiah, leaning against the windowsill and being sure not to fold his arms. Keeping himself open and casual was important, especially with someone like Mello, who could read people and body language just as well as Matt could.

“And I don’t mean that to sound patronizing,” he added, “I really don’t. But I see how spooked you get whenever I light up a cigarette. I pull out the tiny matchbook each night and something in you goes off-- the same way something in me goes off when I drive over a bridge or climb somewhere real high. You gotta _tell_ me, though, or else I have no clue how to make it better.”

Mello wasn’t holding Matt’s gaze, wasn’t even trying to. They were fixated on the four orange flickers of light, like they were expecting the flames to grow and grow until everything was burning. Their face was the same color as milk, and a thin film of cold sweat had broken out over their skin.

“Mello, hey.” A blunt approach obviously hadn’t been the best idea, but there was no going back now, so Matt had to improvise. “Look at me, yeah? Just look at me, focus on me.” He blew the candles out, and fanned at the curls of smoke coming from the blackened wicks. Then he took a step towards the _third-degree burn victim_ staying with him, and _wow_ , he hadn’t thought this through well at _all_.

Mello _was_ scared, he’d known that going in, but he’d been too ramped up to take a moment and consider exactly how frightened they were. And, depending on how the next few minutes went down, he might have been responsible for his best friend having a full-blown panic attack.

_Nice one, Jeevas, real nice. Good thing you’re Jewish-- you would get_ _so much coal in your stocking, holy shit, you're terrible._

Matt stopped within arm’s reach of Mello, extending one of his hands at a slow enough speed that Mello could pull back if they wanted to. “I’m gonna take you to the other room, okay?”

Mello’s lower lip quivered and they clenched their jaw to stop it, taking rushed and faltering steps backwards until their shoulders hit the wall. “D-don’t, don’t you fucking touch me.”

Matt put his hands up. “Okay, okay, I won’t touch you, scout’s honor.”

Mello’s eyes kept darting between Matt and the windowsill, which was now void of any flames or smoke, but Matt wouldn’t bet a single cent that Mello was seeing what was really there.

“Can you sit down, at least?” Matt said, careful to keep his tone gentle. “I don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself.”

Mello slid down the wall until they met the floor, one of their legs sprawled out in front of them and the other drawn up. They propped an elbow on their knee and combed through their hair with their fingers, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“Candles are out.” Matt knelt a few feet away from them, not wanting to impose on their personal space. “You’re safe. Nothing’s gonna hurt you.”

“You can’t make promises like that,” Mello spoke through gritted teeth.

“Then I’ll try as hard as I can to make sure nothing hurts you. How’s that?”

Mello didn’t protest that, which Matt counted as a win.

“This is embarrassing,” Mello said after a while, when the anxiety in them seemed to have subsided a little.

Matt shook his head. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“This _sucks_ , Matt.”

That was the closest they ever got when it came to saying sorry.

-

It was nice, in the midst of chaos and confusion and _change_ , to find what had evaded the effects of time. Some things just stayed the same. And maybe change was good, maybe nothing good came out of this world without it evolving, but there was comfort in tradition—especially for a group of people scattered all over the globe. The repetition, the constants in the order of prayers and the tunes of songs, it was all to maintain that sense of community. Belonging. You couldn’t find that anywhere else.

Matt wasn’t about to bring that up to the devout Catholic, so he acknowledged it to himself quietly. Different was fine, different was great, but the unchanging pieces were what kept you rooted in case you forgot who you were.

That was his explanation for the relief and feeling of home that swept through him when he found Mello sitting on the floor by the coffee table, four or five books spread out in front of them. Because for all they had changed in six years, Mello still didn’t ask questions; Mello _read_.

They broke their concentration when Matt walked in, and Matt quickly busied himself with getting a box of takeout from the fridge.

“That’s not a menorah,” Mello said, like Matt was unaware of it, and that it was a life-or-death crisis.

“Yeah, it’s not supposed to be one.”

“It’s a _hanukiah_.”

Matt tried not to snort at Mello’s pronunciation. He’d have to show them Manischewitz wine sometime, try to get them to pronounce it without having a conniption. “And?”

“Everybody calls it a menorah.” Apparently he was missing something obvious, judging from Mello’s irritated tone. “Doesn’t that piss you off? That people think they know what they’re talking about when they don’t?”

Matt grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the plastic delivery bag in the sink and went to sit down on the other side of the coffee table. “I told you, I don’t hold grudges.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t be annoyed,” Mello grumbled, turning the page in one of the books. They had their hair up in a bun on the crown of their head—probably to keep it off the burns still healing on their neck— and the flyaway hairs shone gold in the overhead lighting.

“Okay, sure, it annoys me, but… People used to come in and raid homes for the exact thing that I can safely put in my window. People used to _die_ for that, barely seventy years ago.”

He had Mello’s full attention, and he’d forgotten what that felt like; the discomfort and strange sort of pride that came with it. He focused on his box of noodles instead.

“I mean, I don’t expect people to know the stories, or why we do things the way we do things, or the significance behind it all. Whether they understand or not doesn’t really affect me. And that’s kinda cool, you know? To have that freedom, to be able to do your own thing even though not everybody gets it. ‘Cause it wasn’t always like that.”

The look on Mello’s face was nothing but classic Catholic guilt with a side of collective German shame. A pretty harsh double whammy.

“I still think you guys should be angrier… at everyone,” Mello said.

“I think the consensus is that we’ve been angry for a long time and we’re tired,” Matt replied. “And whether or not other people know our stories doesn’t matter, because _we_ know our stories.”

Mello mulled this one over for a minute or two, then gathered up the books-- prayer books, Mello had been studying _prayer books_ \--and set them to one side. “Do you have any?”

“Any what?”

“Stories.” 

Matt’s collection of books wasn’t exactly vast and all encompassing, but it was good enough. The next morning, over bowls of off-brand Cheerios, Mello talked about the Maccabees and the Golem of Prague, and Matt grinned and listened even though he knew the stories by heart. It was different— _good_ different—to hear Mello telling them.

“You really like Judah, huh?”

“He succeeded his father and took down a Seleucid army that was twice as large as his,” Mello explained. “He beat the odds. Of _course_ I like him.”

Matt briefly thought of the way Judah Maccabee had earned his name, what with his aggressive battle strategy and blatant disregard for his own safety. He remembered learning that even the bravest warrior hadn’t been invincible; that in the end, Judah had few supporters left, had been killed by the same forces he’d defeated, and had been abandoned by his troops. Left to die alone.

Matt decided not to mention that.

-

After the barely averted disaster on the third night, Matt had stopped lighting the hanukiah. Mello had told him he could, that they would be fine and would stay in the other room until the candles went out, but Matt had insisted. Besides, it was better for the entire apartment complex if he didn’t leave open flames around. Again.

(He wanted to tell Mello the reason why there were no blinds in the main room’s window-- how a few Hanukkahs ago he’d managed to set them on fire and triggered the smoke alarm, how the fire department had come and everyone in the building had had to evacuate, and how the single mother on the tenth floor with three kids and a dog kind of hated him now—but he wasn’t sure Mello would find it funny.)

There were other things they could do to celebrate, anyways, he’d said. And then Mello had asked _what_ , and Matt regretted everything.

“This might be the worst decision I’ve ever made,” Matt thought aloud as Mello sent the spinning top flying across the table.

“Are you kidding? This is the best game— _fuck!_ ” Mello swore as the dreidel slowed and tipped to the side, landing with _nun_ facing upwards. “ _God damn, son of a bitch!_ ”

Matt was torn between laughing and being terrified.

“You understand I will give all my gelt to you even if I win, right?” _Do you also understand that this is a luck-based game? For children?_

“That’s not the point,” Mello protested, neatening their three columns of coins. “The point is to win.”

“I’m gonna die tonight, aren’t I? This is the end, you’re gonna kill me over a game of dreidel.”

“C’mon, I would never.”

“You bit me when we played Monopoly as kids,” Matt reminded them, taking his turn and spinning the dreidel. “You bit me so hard I needed _stitches_.”

“Seriously? I forgot I was a biter as a kid.”

"Yeah, well, me and my right forearm remembered for you."

The dreidel landed on _hay_ and Matt grabbed a fistful of the chocolate coins from the center pile.

“You can’t do that.”

“Can’t do what?”

“You can’t _estimate_. You gotta take exactly half. That’s the rule.”

“Jesus Christ on a tortilla, Mello, I swear I will punch you in your pretty mouth if you don’t untwist your panties.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

They play-fought like scrawny and hungry lions, pushing the table out of the way as they hit with open hands and pulled lightly on each other’s hair, laughing and shouting and not caring about anything. They found the couch and stayed there, less open-hand-hitting and hair pulling, more I-need-you touching and please-come-closer kissing.

The dreidel was long forgotten.

-

“No way.”

“I’m telling you, it’s based on a true story.”

“There’s no way a bunch of orthodox Jews smuggled drugs around New York, that just wouldn’t happen.”

“That sounded a _little_ anti-Semitic.”

Mello elbowed Matt in the ribs and Matt threw a couple pieces of popcorn at them in retaliation.

“Jewish drug peddlers.”

“Yes.”

“Matt, this movie is your life story.”

“Excuse me, no, I _buy_ drugs-- I buy _weed_. That’s tame as hell. Jesse Eisenberg is dealing out ecstasy, and he’s not Egyptian _or_ Canadian, and he’s orthodox. Do I look American _or_ orthodox to you?”

Mello relented. “No, but I _do_ think you’d look real cute with those ringlet curls on the sides of your face.”

“They’re called _payot_ , and absolutely not.”

Mello fussed with the throw blanket until it was unfolded all the way and draped it over them both. “This sweater does nothing.”

“It’s more for an aesthetic purpose.”

The woman who ran the deli down the street had stopped by with Hanukkah sweaters, because all her kids were grown and she knew Matt didn’t have family, so now he and Mello were sprawled out on the floor in front of his laptop, watching movies and wearing matching sweaters. Neither of them got more generically romantic than that.

“Alright, alright, if I’m Jesse Eisenberg, then you’re Ari Graynor.”

“You’re making it sound like I shouldn’t be okay with that, and I’m totally okay with that.” Mello shifted closer to him, and he wasn’t sure it was because they were cold.

Matt might have been a stoner, but he was far from stupid; after Mello rested up and got better, the two of them wouldn’t have this anymore. These peaceful moments when their hearts were light and nothing seemed to exist except for the warmth from each other’s bodies, the tender stretches of time where they didn’t have to worry about tomorrow or next month or next year—those would all be gone. Mello would break into a run as soon as they got back on their feet. Matt knew this, Matt accepted this, but that didn’t stop him from wishing for more time.

Love wasn’t spoken, it was shown. That was how both of them did things. So this closeness, being huddled together under one blanket in front of a computer screen, sharing a bowl of cheap popcorn, and knocking against each other’s outstretched feet was all they needed.

And Matt wasn’t big on serious relationships, but whatever the two of them had definitely wasn’t as flimsy and fluctuating as a relationship was, and _goddamn_ , he wanted Mello to stick around. He wanted Mello to stop getting hurt.

He couldn’t ask that of them. They would fight and fight and keep fighting until they died, and Matt—God help him—would do anything they asked of him. Not because he felt obligated or because they manipulated him, no, he’d go out guns blazing because he _wanted_ to do it for them.

“Okay, Justin Bartha, though—“ Mello started.

“ _Right?_ Fourteen-year-old me saw _National Treasure_ for the first time and had a sexuality crisis.”

“I thought your sexuality crisis was when twelve-year-old you watched _Treasure Planet_.”

“I had a lot of sexuality crises.”

Mello laughed, and it was beautiful, and Matt wanted their lives to be more like this-- warm, carefree, and happy. Together.

Then the moment ended.

-

They weren't intimate. It wasn’t that there was tension, or that they felt like they shouldn’t. They just… didn’t. It wouldn’t have made sense to, anyways; if they were going to, they would want to learn each other again first, and there was no way Mello was staying with him long enough for that.

For seven nights, Mello slept on the couch, curled up under spare blankets with their jacket as a pillow. Matt’s own bed was open to them, he’d made that clear without saying it by leaving his door open each night, but Mello never accepted the offer.

So Matt was surprised, to say the least, when Mello padded quietly into his room on the eighth night as he was pulling on a shirt to sleep in.

“You okay?” He tossed Mello a shirt from the drawer, something cotton and soft, and Mello hesitated before switching their moth-eaten Nirvana shirt for Matt’s clean Star Wars one.

“We could go do laundry tomorrow,” Matt said. “I assume you know how to do laundry?”

Mello scoffed, glanced down at the floorboards beneath their feet, and Matt’s brows knit together.

“Mel, what’s going on?”

“I’m fine, I promise.”

Matt’s gaze shifted to the empty space on his bed.

Mello didn’t ask for things.

“… You wanna sleep here?” He prompted, trying to sound casual, because as soon as Mello got embarrassed they withdrew into themself and it was back to square one.

“Can I?”

“Course you can. Here, look, there’s plenty of room.”

Mello kept to their side of the bed, facing away from Matt and drawing their legs close to them, their breaths calculated and measured.

Staring at the ceiling, Matt said, “Want me to spoon you?”

“Shut up.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

Mello wasn’t always fond of touch, but there was a sense of trust rippling through the sheets (Mello never turned their back to anyone, but their back was turned now, and this was a fucking minefield of a delicate situation because one wrong move would probably cost him an eye) and touch might be what Mello wanted.

He rolled onto his side, scooting closer until his chest grazed Mello’s spine, and laid an arm across Mello’s body.

“Is this good?”

Mello reached for Matt's arm, making his hold around them more snug. “Yeah.”

Mello felt safe here, with him, and it shouldn’t have seemed like such an accomplishment, but it was.

He fell asleep with his head resting against theirs, and their hand holding his to their chest.

-

The morning after the eighth and final night, after seven short days, Mello left. Mello left without any evidence that they'd been there, without even waiting for Matt to wake up to say goodbye.

Did that mean it _wasn’t_ goodbye? Mello could be so fucking cryptic.

Matt rolled over and felt a dull pain in his shoulder. After sitting up and pulling back the tangled sheets, he found a small brown box resting on the mattress.

“What an asshole…” Matt muttered to himself, not really meaning it and not caring that he didn’t mean it.

He didn’t know where Mello had gotten it or how they’d paid for it, and he was quite content with keeping those missing facts missing.

Inside the box was a string of lava stone beads, punctuated with lapis lazuli and a small silver hamsa. A piece of paper was folded up and tucked into the side.

_"You give presents on Hanukkah, right?"_

_"Yeah. Why?"_

_"I was curious, that's all."_

Matt wanted to be angry. He’d known this would happen, he’d known Mello would leave, but he wanted to be angry and he didn’t want to accept this attempt at an apology.

But he also didn’t hold grudges.

He slid the bracelet on his wrist and unfolded the note.

He’d been expecting some sort of excuse or explanation, a roundabout apology written in Mello’s scrawled, elegant handwriting, but there were only two words on the paper:

_be safe._

Matt kind of wanted to cry, kind of wanted to scream, and ended up doing neither. He put the note whose words felt like a commandment back in the box and set it on the bedside table.

_Be safe, be safe, be safe._

Not an option.

He retrieved his computer from the main room and began the long process of tracking Mello’s phone.

-

_לוֶֹה רָשָׁע וְלֹא יְשַׁלֵּם וְצַדִּיק חוֹנֵן וְנוֹתֵן_

_“The wicked man borrows and does not repay; but the righteous one is benevolent and gives.”_  ([Psalms 37:21](http://www.chabad.org/16258#v21))

**Author's Note:**

> here are some helpful resources (some of which i used while writing) so you can learn about all the jewish things wow
> 
> First off, the general summary of the story of Hanukkah if you are not familiar: http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm
> 
> If y'all don't know what latkes are I swear: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/potato-latkes-104406
> 
> The hanukiah and the menorah and why they're different: http://www.hanukkahfun.com/367/what-is-the-difference-between-a-hanukiah-and-a-menorah/
> 
> The Maccabees: http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2013/9/23/who-were-the-maccabees#.VoLkn8ArIfE=
> 
> The Golem: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Golem.html
> 
> Dreidel and how to play: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-to-play-dreidel/
> 
> The movie Matt and Mello were watching is called Holy Rollers, and it _is_ based off a true story: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1143896/
> 
> Hamsas: http://judaism.about.com/od/judaismbasics/a/whatisahamsa.htm
> 
> The "evil eye" (which is what hamsas protect against): http://judaism.about.com/od/jewishculture/fl/Understanding-the-Ayin-Hara.htm
> 
> (This is what the bracelet looks like, in case y'all wanted to know: http://www.hellonatostrap.com/image/cache/HNSBA014-600x600.JPG)


End file.
